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Tag: sexual assault

Sisters Uncut are a great example of grassroots feminist activism. Their protest at the premier of the film Suffrage helped raise awareness of the consequences of the decimation of specialist support services for women. However, their campaign is specifically about the importance of specialist domestic violence services, which is why I was disappointed to read a piece in the Independent by a member which uses the term domestic violence and violence against women interchangeably.

It is absolutely true that Sylvia Walby’s research into the reality of violence against women in the UK demonstrates how the Crime Survey erases the experiences of women who experience domestic violence by capping the number of crimes that one person can report at 5. The Office for National Statistics insist the cap is necessary as

“otherwise the sheer number of crimes committed by perpetrators against the same individual would skew the rest of the statistics.”

Recording the frequency of incidents of physical, emotional, psychological or sexual violence experienced by an individual would cause a surge in crime statistics, but it doesn’t ‘defy’ statistics as Sisters Uncut suggests. It would make clear the consistent failure of successive governments and police forces to deal with the issue. It would have long-term consequences on financing and would make women’s secondary status in political life obvious. The cap disproportionately impacts women and it specifically impacts women who experience the vast majority of domestic violence by erasing the sex of the perpetrator: who are overwhelmingly male. The decision to create a cap was not to make it easier for statisticians, but a clear policy of eliding the reality of all forms of violence against women and girls from public awareness.

The cap also functions to inflate the number of men who experience domestic violence by including incidences of retaliatory violence where a woman lashes out at the male partner who is physically harming her causing injury to his person.* The victim, therefore, becomes a perpetrator of domestic violence. In this case, the man’s one experience (caused by a woman defending herself) is given more credence than a woman who may have experienced 365 separate incidents of which only 5 count in official statistics. This is why the 1 in 6 men are victims of domestic violence is a misnomer. Conflating retaliatory violence with the pattern of coercive control that is domestic violence harms women as a class and makes it more difficult to campaign for specialist services for women. The cap makes domestic violence look ‘gender-neutral’.

It is not yet clear to me how the new criminal offence of coercive control will be recorded in these statistics. If each incident of coercive control is included, the crime statistics will be astronomical. It’s unlikely the media will address this issue appropriately since they have uniformly reported a drop in violent crime in the annual crime survey despite the fact that domestic and sexual violence and abuse are on the rise. Here the media colludes in creating a picture where only violence experienced by men constitutes real violence.

Removing the cap is essential to change public perceptions of domestic violence, however domestic violence does not equal violence against women and girls. It is one part of the continuum of violence against girls first formulated by Prof Liz Kelly in reference to her research on sexual violence. The theoretical construct of this continuum has since been expanded to include all forms of violence against women: domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, crimes in the name of ‘honour’, trafficking and more. Violence against women is any “violence that is directed at a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately”. As a radical feminist, I include pornography, prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation as part of the continuum.

So-called ‘austerity measures’ in the UK disproportionately impact women increasing women’s poverty (and that of their children). I believe this forms part of the continuum as denying women physical and emotional safety whilst financially penalising them for being born female are acts of state sanctioned violence in and of themselves and make women more vulnerable to other forms of male violence.

Sisters Uncut’s activism around the specific issue of domestic violence is essential, particularly making links to the cuts to legal aid, housing, refuges, healthcare, migrant women, poverty, and forcing women to facilitate unsafe contact between their children with their violent fathers through the family courts and social services. Using the term ‘violence against women’ interchangeably with domestic violence is problematic and it is important for Sisters Uncut to remain clear that their focus is solely on domestic violence and the importance of specialist services for women. After all, there are over 40 rape crisis centres across England and Wales at risk due to changes in funding. The national umbrella organisation Rape Crisis England and Wales appears to be receiving no government funding in 2016.** Specialist services for Black, Minority and Ethnic women are more at risk than other services. Cuts to ESOL and racist migration policies put BAME women at greater risk because of state-enforced dependence on violent spouses to remain in the UK with their children. Fighting specifically for domestic violence services can not come at the expense of other specialist services for women.

We need to be very clear when discussing the continuum of violence against women and girls and not use terms interchangeably. This particular article by Sisters Uncut is the most recent media piece I have seen making this mistake, but they are not the only one. The mainstream media consistently conflates terms, even in the very few well-written articles on the issues.

The political system is simply not designed to support women or recognise women’s specific vulnerabilities. which raises another issue with Sisters Uncut’s activism: membership. This is the definition for membership into the Sisters Uncut collective:

Our meetings should be inclusive and supportive spaces for all women (trans, intersex and cis), all those who experience oppression as women (including non-binary and gender non-conforming people) and all those who identify as women for the purpose of political organising. Self-definition is at the sole-discretion of that sister.

The women’s services that aren’t closing due to lack of funding, like Eaves, are being replaced by ‘neutral’ services. Local authorities are increasingly giving funding for refuges to homeless services and others that do not recognised the gendered reality of domestic violence. In at least one recent case, a woman fleeing an abusive male partner found herself housed in the same facility as the man because the local council did not recognise women’s specific vulnerabilities. There have been numerous reported cases of men claiming to be victims of domestic violence solely to be housed in the same facility as their former partner. There are a number of cases in Canada and the US where men claiming to be transwomen to gain access to women’s spaces where these self-defining transwomen have committed sexual assault and rape. None of these are aberrations. They are a direct consequence of the failure to recognise and differentiate between the hierarchical power relations of the social construction of gender and the material reality of sexed (and racialised) bodies.

Women cannot identify out of the biological reality of their body. Pregnancy, menstruation, and menopause exist. Women’s bodies exist. The preponderance of violence against women and girls is because women are constructed as less than men. Women due to the majority of caring because our culture links having a uterus to doing all the caring work. Men who engage in coercively controlling behaviours believe they have the right to do so – male entitlement is the basis of violence against women and girls. Our entire culture assumes men’s inalienable rights of sexual access to women’s bodies and their control over (re)productive labour. The judicial system, family, civil and criminal, still view women and children as the possessions of men. ‘Neutral’ policies on domestic and sexual violence and abuse are created to erase the identity of perpetrators: men. Ignoring the hierarchical social construction of gender makes it easier for local authorities to defund specialist women’s services. After all, if anyone can self-identify as male or female, the sex of the perpetrator and of the victims becomes irrelevant.

We will not end violence against women and girls by using gender- neutral language or by conflating one form of violence with the entire continuum. Claiming to be non-binary will not suddenly erase the inequalities in pay predicated on sex (or race or class). Women who do not conform to the gendered identity coercively assigned them at birth have always existed and are always punished – from the ‘witch’ trials to the corrective rape of lesbian women. This is not a new phenomenon and queer theory is responsible for erasing the history of women’s oppression by men. Obviously, this oppression is contextualised by historical location, cultural practice, as well as race, disability, sexuality and class, but the premise remains the same: women are treated as objects and possessions of men; men who believe they are entitled to control and harm women.

We need to eradicate the current white supremacist, capitalist-patriachy. We need to fight against austerity as its just the newest way to punish women for the crime of being born female, but we won’t do this unless we are clear in our language.

* See Michael P Johnson’s Typology of Domestic Violence

** The report into this was recently released and I have not yet had a chance to read it.

Jennifer Lawrence is a victim of sexual violence – so is every single person who has had a photograph or video of them naked or engaged in sex. This runs the gamut from Vanessa Hudgens, Prince Harry, and every single teenage girl who has had images of them passed about the internet.

There have been some incredibly important blogs written on this “leak of images” today, all of which make it very clear that accessing images you are not given permission to see is, at the very least, immoral – and a crime if the images are used to humiliate, denigrate or abuse. Sharing, distributing or viewing images involving nudity or sex are a crime of sexual violence.

If you are looking at these images or sharing them, you are committing sexual assault. You are perpetrating rape culture. YOU are the problem – not the women in the photos.

According to an article in the Huffington Post, a 12 year old boy in the Alberta town of Lethbridge is facing multiple charges in the sexual assault of his two younger sisters. The charges include incest, sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching. The article in the Huffington Post gives the ages of the three children which I find troubling since that level of information given in a case in a small town does identify the victims.

But, more worryingly, the article suggests the boy has been released from custody with the stipulation that he not be left alone with any child under the age of 12 without the supervision of an adult. It is absolutely inappropriate and unethical for any information to be released about this case as it will identify the victims, yet, I have to ask whose custody has the boy been released into: his parents? foster care? If he has been released into foster care, is the carer trained to deal with a juvenile sexual predator? If he has been released into his parents care, where are his sisters? How, exactly, will the courts ensure the child is never left alone with other children? Will he be allowed to return to school? And, if so, what safety procedures has the school put in place for recess and bathroom breaks? Are the police investigating the potential sexual abuse of the young boy since it is possible that he was acting out abuse perpetrated on him? Are the whole family being given appropriate support and mandatory counselling?

We can’t ever know the answers to these questions because the two young girls in this case deserve anonymity. But, I do worry that, as ever, the criminal justice system – even the juvenile one – does not deal appropriately with children who commit sexual violence and that social services do not have the resources or training to support the two young girls.

I have been with my children all day. I’ve seen bits and pieces about the “Magaluf girl” giving blow jobs for a holiday but I didn’t want to look too closely because I could already guess how the media would report the story. A young woman who “gave” 24 men blow jobs whilst drunk in a club in Spain would only be reported one way: she was a slag, a slut and a whore.

I didn’t want to read because I remember the coverage of the sexual assault of a young girl at a concert at Slane Castle in Ireland last year: a 17 year old girl who was exploited, assaulted and then had to deal with the images being shared through social media. I thoroughly dislike the term “revenge porn” because it minimises sexual assault and rape with the suggesting of “consent”. Every single person who shared the images and video of the incident at Slane Castle was perpetrating sexual assault – particularly those who shared identifying details of the young woman.

The young woman, who will now be known as the demeaning term “Magaluf girl”, which may or may not be better than her real name being shared, is now experiencing a similar level of blame, harassment, and shaming as the young girl assaulted at Slane Castle. Yet, we still aren’t discussing the issue of sexual exploitation, consent to commit the acts, coercion, consent to share the images in the mass media and the role of men in the club, the audience, and the club owners and managers who planned a game to have a young woman perform sex acts on multiple men.

@Seja75 has written an important critique of media coverage for Ending Victimisation and Blame but I disagree with part of her analysis. I don’t think it’s possible for a young woman who has been drinking in a club surrounded by large numbers of men cheering her on to have informed consent. Even if a woman has sexual fantasies involving exhibitionism, in a situation in a club with an audience, it is very difficult to feel safe enough to say no – to believe you have a choice to say no. Being surrounded by a large number of men is coercion.

This is without getting into the issue of sharing the video and images across the web. Here, I agree with Seja entirely: anyone who was actually concerned about issues of sexual exploitation and assault will have asked several questions including: has the young woman involved given consent to the the sex act? has the young woman consented to filming? Have the men involved consented to filming? Have the men consented to participating (and Seja raises some interesting questions about one of the men involved)? What was the role of the club in this event? Do they have informed consent? Do they even know what informed consent is?

Unlike Seja, I don’t think there is a best case scenario here. Young women are groomed into sexual exploitation from childhood. We are taught not to say no and we all learn very early what the consequences of saying no are. This is a clear case of sexual exploitation – by a club, by people at the club and by the media.

We need to start asking why men would line up to in a club surrounded by an audience to have a woman orally masturbate them. What is going through their heads at that moment? Were they drunk and incapable of informed consent? Or, did they enter the club knowing that this was part of the evening?

We need to challenge the shaming of this young women but we also need to challenge a culture where a young woman could be put in a position like this. We need to start talking honestly about what informed consent actually means and we need to start looking at holding businesses accountable for sexual violence perpetrated on their premises but also created by their employees and managers. The staff who created this “blow job for a holiday” are guilty of coercion.

Sharing the images of this event is unethical and immoral. It isn’t required to discuss this case in the media. The media holds responsibility for further sexually assaulting this young woman, just as they did with the young woman at Slane Castle.

Whatever the answers to the questions raised, one point will remain: the media should be prohibited from sharing these images. And, any media outlet, blogger, tweeter or Reddit commentator who share these types of videos and images without consent should be legally prosecuted for sexual assault.

It is worth looking specifically at a couple of the “points” because the implication of this list is actually quite frightening:

4. ‘When they think it’s sexy to spank you so hard that you just want to turn around and punch them in the face.’

7. ‘When you give them a blow job and they start f*****g your face as if you don’t have a gag reflex. How about I’m sick all over your penis?’

8. ‘When they ask you to strip (which is always awkward – what music do you put on?) and then your skinny jeans get stuck round your ankles.’

10. ‘When you’re in the middle of foreplay and they thrust a finger up your bum with NO warning.’

13. ‘Putting their fingers in all your holes at once like they’re playing some sort of instrument. Far too confusing, you just don’t know what’s going on down there.’

14. ‘When they think it’s a good idea to stick objects in you. Just no.’

15. ‘Casually trying to have anal sex without asking and without lube. It does not just slip in there.’

16. ‘Being so aggressive with their hands during foreplay that they pretty much give you internal bleeding and bruising.’

17. ‘Nipple biting. It just f*****g hurts.’

18. ‘Pulling your hair so hard you scream and your eyes water.’

Inserting an object without consent is rape. It really is that simple. If your partner has done any of the above without your express consent, then they have committed a crime. The fact that the Metro has published this piece without recognising the difference between poor hygiene being a turn-off during oral sex and rape is frightening.

This is rape culture in action. This article is teaching our girls that a man inserting a penis in their anus without consent is “poor etiquette”, not rape. That “rough sex” should be tolerated if that’s what your male partner enjoys.

This isn’t a list about women’s sexuality and looking at ways in which men’s behaviour decreases women’s interest in having sex. It’s basically telling women to put up and shut up because men aren’t capable of understanding the difference between poor etiquette and rape.

Frankly, every single man should be angry at this and writing letters of complaint to the Metro for insulting them. And, the entire staff of the Metro need to undergo some training from Rape Crisis.